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If no Rice again this week, a question.

OK, if we are without Rice again this week against the Cowboys, who do you line up next to Flacco in the shotgun in the backfield in passing situations? McGahee was there pretty much exclusively on Sunday and to be quite frank we saw why he never played on 3rd downs before. I remember a few threads & posters (myself included) asking why McGahee always came out on third downs (under Billick particularly) and we found that answer out on Sunday. To be quite frank he sucked, his hands are terrible and he can't block. For a third down back in obvious passing situations that's not acceptable and he's a liability there.

So the question I'd ask is who do you put back there this week if we're without Rice? They like to send both OLBs off of the edge or switch up to a four man line in obvious passing situations so we might need to keep someone in.

Do you:

- Stick with McGahee?

- Stick Heap in the backfield and line up Wilcox at TE if we have one?

- Stick Wilcox in the backfield and not move Heap around?

- Stick both TEs in the backfield and go 3 wide?

- Stick Neal in the backfield and forget having a receiving threat?

This conundrum and the lack of Rice really does expose a lack of another even halfway competent blocking back on this team, big hole exposed by the lack of Rice destroying our depth in the backfield, nobody else doing anything to compliment McClain. McGahee needs to buck his ideas up and get his arse in gear if we're going to stick with him, though I'm not sure we have much choice.

Re: If no Rice again this week, a question.

Troy Smith -- we need to use his athleticism. Think that getting him in on an option play or 2 (NOT the suggs package but just in as a QB) could be another way of opening up our offensive options.

Saw America's Game about the 1990 Giants -- there's a great story about Jeff Hofstedler wanting to play so bad as a backup quarterback that he used to play special teams routinely. So why not be creative?